"Are you Santa Claus?"

Posted:
12/21/2011 01:00:00 AM MST

By Harold Anderson, Ph.D., LMFT

As I passed through the halls of the pre-school where I work, two youngsters, probably in kindergarten, stopped and asked me, “Are you Santa Claus?” Now I have never liked being equated with Santa Claus not because I think Santa Claus is a problematic belief, but because I just don’t fancy myself looking like Santa Claus. I must admit, there may be some resemblance and thanks to my wife’s input, I have begun to have fun with this equation, but on that day I responded to their question. “No,” I said, “I am not Santa Claus.” As I turned to walk away, I heard one whisper to the other “I think he really is.” Beliefs are funny things and in the face of these two young children who asked me whether I was Santa Claus were revealed more than their belief in Santa. What they revealed was an innocence that is in keeping with the spirit of Christmas, which we purport to celebrate at this time of year. Lying beneath the brightly wrapped packages, beyond the advertisements of merchants, apart from the platitudes proclaimed by differing denominations all vying and competing for their own brand of Christmas is innocence easily missed that heralds the meaning of Christmas.

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It may not be found in sermons; it may be missed in the bright lights that adorn the Holidays; it may easily slip by unnoticed in the Holiday pageants that mark this time of year, but for anyone who has held an infant, who has rocked a baby to sleep, who has felt the warmth of their young lives and laid them quietly to rest in their cradles, for anyone who has peered into the face of a baby and been warmed by the magic of their gaze, this person has been touched by the spirit of Christmas. In this gaze is a transcendence that continually escapes the onlooker and cannot be fully captured in words. It is nothing less than miraculous and it is life transforming.I fear that in light of our dogmas of transcendent, omnipotent Gods with their all powerful attitudes of salvation and damnation, the face of the child is forgotten and with this, we forget the life-transforming reality of an infant. When theology becomes an issue of power, we forget the weakness necessary to inspire renewal, a weakness that ruptures all the ideologies of adult worlds by putting them into proper perspective. We forget gentleness, we forget quiet, we forget that the point is life not its destruction. In the innocence of an infant’s face there is no judgment; there is trust; there is love; there is acceptance.Perhaps the meaning of the Holidays is this: peace, love and trust. It is much easier to find these values in the face of a baby than in many of our ideas about God, for in the face of an infant we find the meaning of grace. How easily this is distorted. In the biblical narratives this is the case. The wonder of Jesus’ birth is distorted by proclamations of greatness designed to sweep our minds from the deconstructive peace of an infant to the authoritative and powerful ways of an omnipotent God. We cannot rest; we cannot be content with peace; we cannot be satisfied with the transcendental mystery of a baby’s gaze. The time is brief and in this brevity we risk the loss of grace. In the acceptance of this moment, we are swept into the ins and outs of judgment. A baby does not ask for agreement, conformity is not its requirement. It asks only for acceptance and pleads in its tears for safety and comfort. Our world, our societies are not for the most part premised upon the gaze of an infant no matter how much we may claim to extol the virtues of children. Instead, our adult worlds seem to be worlds of judgment condemning those outside our groups and accepting only those who can or are willing to conform. Acceptance seems always to be conditional, predicated upon incantations, beliefs, political ideologies or religious dogmas that hide the peace and grace of the infant’s face. Care and comfort almost always come with a price. Sometimes it seems that our care is more about us than the one for whom we care, and when this happens care is less about touching and being touched than a system of merit. Our measure of goodness is grounded in an objectivist mindset of selfishness and greed rather than an attitude of giving revealed in the miracle of a baby’s gaze. All too often we love with reservation because to love is to risk vulnerability and the possibility of being hurt. In a baby’s face we see love in all of its vulnerability…and this is the baby’s strength, this is the spirit of grace.“Are you Santa Claus?” In the face of children we are given a gift that should be life-transforming if we let it. In the face of children is reflected the innocence inherent in the look of an infant. It is a trace of innocence that is all too easily missed and in this season where many of us celebrate the birth of a baby, we need to push aside all the trappings of adulthood that hide the baby’s face, its miraculous energy and its inspirational grace. Then maybe we will know peace. Then maybe we will find salvation. It is a peace and salvation for all people regardless their walk of life, their race, their religion or their political ideology, for in face of a baby there is no difference. We are all called upon to care and love without condition and in that gaze all can find acceptance. There is no need for the trappings of adulthood where the reality of Santa Claus is all too easily rejected.